United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, “I can’t wait to join you” in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

“It sounds like code words,” said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a military analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. “That he’s actually either offering himself up or that he’s already crossed that line in his own mind.”

Other messages include questions, the official with access to the e-mails said, that include when is jihad appropriate, and whether it is permissible if there are innocents killed in a suicide attack.

“Hasan told Awlaki he couldn’t wait to join him in the discussions they would having over non-alcoholic wine in the afterlife,” the official said.

Major Hasan also wrote, “My strength is my financial capabilities.”

Federal investigators have found that Hasan donated $20,000 to $30,000 a year to overseas Islamic “charities.” As an Army major, his yearly salary, including housing and food allowances, was approximately $92,000. A number of Islamic charities have been identified by U.S. authorities as conduits to terror groups.

Two FBI task forces, in Washington and San Diego, received the intercepted messages, but deemed them innocent.

On Capitol Hill today, Senators questioned how that could be.

“The choice of this recipient of emails says a lot about what Hasan was looking for,” said Senator Joseph Lieberman, chair of the Senate’s Homeland Security committee. Lieberman’s committee held a hearing on the Fort Hood shootings, and announced that it was launching an investigation.

“What I’m getting at,” said Lieberman, “Is he may have been looking for spiritual sanctions for what he’s accused of ultimately doing.”

The American-born Awlaki is considered a recruiter for al-Qaeda. He has been in hiding since the shooting, but a Yemeni journalist told ABC News today that the e-mails show Hasan was “almost a member of al-Qaeda.”

Pentagon Probe Looking For Gaps, Gates Said

At Fort Hood today, federal investigators continued to gather evidence for the criminal prosecution of Hasan, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced his own investigation of the incident.

Gates said the Pentagon probe would try “to find possible gaps or deficiencies in Defense Department programs, processes and procedures for identifying service members who could potentially pose credible threats to others.”

Some members of Congress have raised questions about the military’s counter-intelligence unit, based at Fort Meade, and Gates said every question will be answered.

“I promise the Department of Defense’s full and open disclosure,” said Gates.

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, was once the imam of a Falls Church, Virginia mosque attended by Hasan and two of the 9/11 hijackers. After an intensive investigation by the FBI, Awlaki moved to Yemen where he was imprisoned in 2006 and says he was interrogated by U.S. authorities.

A blog entry posted on Awlaki’s site after the Fort Hood massacre praised Hasan as a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.” The site has since been taken down, as has a Facebook fan page devoted to Awlaki. In a subsequent interview with the Washington Post, Awlaki described himself as Hasan’s “confidant.”

In addition to his contacts with Hasan, Awlaki served as an inspiration for men convicted in terror plots in Toronto and Fort Dix, New Jersey, according to government officials and court records reviewed by ABCNews.com.

In Toronto, members of the so-called Toronto 18 watched videos of Awlaki at a makeshift training camp where they allegedly planned an attack on the Canadian parliament and prime minister.

Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.

Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 1303(a)(2)(C) describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan and for those who are given an affordability credit to purchase insurance coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.

Leader Reid’s 2,074-page health care monstrosity is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy. The National Right to Life Committee has called the Reid abortion language “completely unacceptable.” The American people deserve more from their government than being forced to pay for abortion. The pro-life Stupak/Pitts amendment passed the House by a vote of 240 to 194, enjoying the overwhelming support of 176 Republicans and 64 Democrats. The Stupak/Pitts Amendment codifies current law by prohibiting federal funding of elective abortions under any government-run plan or plans available under the Exchange. The Reid plan ignores the will of a bipartisan majority of the House, and indeed the American people, by rejecting this bipartisan amendment.

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life – not end it – and the American people agree. House Republicans have offered a common-sense, responsible solution that would reduce health care costs and expand access while protecting the dignity of all human life. The Republican plan, available at HealthCare.GOP.gov, would codify the Hyde Amendment and prohibit all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. And under the Republican plan, any health plan that includes abortion coverage may not receive federal funds.

CIA recruits among Muslims

What could go wrong? Surely the CIA will thoroughly vet prospective spies for adherence to the doctrines of jihad and Islamic supremacism — as well as the old adage of Muhammad, “war is deceit” — won’t they?

One may hope that they will, but certainly it would be more reassuring in this regard if any agency in official Washington had ever shown any awareness that those doctrines even exist, much less any awareness of the implications of their existence.

“CIA launches recruitment drive on internet and TV,” by Tim Reid in the Times Online, March 31 (thanks to Oao):

The CIA is attempting to recruit more spies by advertising on the internet, radio and television, and by holding meetings with American Muslims to make up a severe shortage of Arabic speakers….Leon Panetta, the new CIA director, will meet Muslim groups in cities such as Detroit to spearhead personally the new drive to recruit Arabic speakers. He recently lamented the fact that only 13 per cent of CIA officers speak a foreign language, and just 22 per cent come from minorities.

“In order to accomplish our vital intelligence mission we want to market our employment opportunities to speakers of Arabic, Russian, Korean, Pashtu and Urdu,” George Little, a CIA spokesman, told The Times….

Earlier this month Scott White, third in command at the CIA, held meetings with Arab-American and Chaldean-American representatives in Detroit, which has heavily populated American Muslim suburbs. He told the groups that he would bring Mr Panetta to a future meeting….

The Senate voted today 59-39 to confirm a pro-abortion federal judge President Barack Obama appointed to become a new appeals court justice. David Hamilton, of Indiana, is the first pro-abortion judge Obama selected, but he was held up for months because of his extreme views.

With less than 60 votes, the Senate could have defeated the nomination had lawmakers voted Tuesday to sustain the filibuster pro-life advocates launched against Hamilton.

The vote saw all but one Republican, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who is nominally pro-life, vote against Hamilton while all Democrats supported his nomination except two who were not present for the vote.

However, the cloture vote saw no Democrats joining the 29 pro-life Republicans who supported it and a defection of some of the more liberal Republicans in the caucus.

Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest said Hamilton should have been defeated because “judges should uphold Constitutional restrictions on abortion.”

“As a District Court judge, Hamilton promoted his radical pro-abortion agenda. His promotion to the Seventh Circuit” is a “serious concern to the pro-life community,” she told LifeNews.com.

Hamilton was tapped by Obama in March to fill a vacancy on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As he promised he would do, pro-life Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama led the filibuster and said Hamilton should be opposed in part because of his pro-abortion views.

Sessions noted how Hamilton kept an informed consent measure from being enforced in Indiana, thereby prohibiting women from getting information about abortion’s risks and alternatives so they can find positive alternatives.

“And for seven years, through a series of rulings, Hamilton kept it form being enforced. This case is a blatant example of allowing personal views to frustrate the will of the people and the popularly elected representatives of the government of Indiana,” Sessions said. “This appeared to me to be obstructionism.”

Sen. Jim DeMint, a pro-life senator from South Carolina, agreed.

“Judge Hamilton is the definition of an activist judge and is clearly not qualified to sit on a court of appeals,” DeMint said during the debate. “Hamilton, who spent years working with the ACLU and ACORN, has used his position on the bench to drive his personal political agenda.”

The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List objected to Hamilton and said it worries about future Obama nominees.

“If Judge David Hamilton is considered a blueprint for the next judge President Obama will nominate for the U.S. Supreme Court, America is in trouble,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the organization, told LifeNews.com.

Yep, we’ve been in trouble since day one. Elections do indeed have consequences.

Health bill could get 34-hour reading in Senate

The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover — and that’s just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor.

The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal debate on the legislation.

The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins. While Democrats could, if they wish, repeatedly make motions to end the soliloquy, Republicans on the floor could object, and the reading would continue.

What’s even more interesting is that Senate Rule XIV (paragraph 2) states that every bill and joint resolution “shall receive three readings prior to its passage.”

“Upon demand of a senator, these readings shall be on three different legislative days,” the rules say.

A little quick math shows that at a minute a page — an easily achieved pace since the pages are double spaced and in a rather large type face — it would take 34.5 hours to read straight through the measure put together this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Republican leadership and gallery staff say the reading — with occasional pauses and sips of water for parched throats — could take more like 48 to 54 hours.

At least funny bones are being stimulated by the Obama Administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

To wit, how many Americans does it take to make nine pairs of work boots? According to the White House’s recovery.gov site, an $890 shoe order for the Army Corps of Engineers, courtesy of the stimulus package, created nine new jobs at Moore’s Shoes & Services in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

The job-for-a-boot plan may not be American productivity at its best. But such stories go a ways toward explaining how the Administration has come up with 640,329 jobs “created/saved” by the American Recovery Act as of October 30.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News deserves credit among Beltway reporters for committing journalism and actually fact-checking White House claims. Head Start in Augusta, Georgia claimed 317 jobs were created by a $790,000 grant. In reality, as Mr. Karl reported this week, the money went toward a one-off pay hike for 317 employees.

Other media outlets and government watchdog groups have also found numerous errors in the stimulus filings. Jobs have been overstated or counted multiple times. One Alabama housing authority claimed that a $540,071 grant would create 7,280 jobs. The Birmingham News reports that only 14 were created. In some cases, Recovery Act funds went to nonexistent Congressional districts, such as the 26th in Louisiana or the 12th in Virginia. Up to $6.4 billion went to imaginary places in America, according to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Asked by the New Orleans Times-Picayune why so many recipients would misstate their districts, Ed Pound, the director of communications for the Obama Administration’s recovery.gov, said, “Who knows, man, who really knows.”

The nonexistence of the jobs and places allegedly stimulated by the Recovery Act doesn’t necessarily mean the money was misspent or stolen. But it does indicate that the claims made on its behalf are a political illusion. The true jobs measure of an economic recovery is the unemployment rate, which rose to 10.2% last month. No matter how hard or imaginatively the Administration spins, the reality is that the stimulus has been the economic bust that critics predicted it would be.

RUSH: I love the ChiComs. I have to tell you, I love the ChiComs. They took Obama on a tour of the Forbidden City, and they kicked everybody else out. Obama did not get to go preen. He did not get to pretend he was in Berlin making a speech to 200,000 — nobody saw him. They do not allow political showboats over there. (laughing) I mean in a number of ways I actually do have a kind of respect for the ChiComs. So we are to believe that Eric Holder consulted no other human being that has any position of responsibility in the government about creating the trial of the millennium in New York City other than his wife and his brother. Right. Yeah.
President Obama visiting the ChiComs on his Asian trip. Speaking of which, yesterday in Shanghai, President Obama held a town hall meeting with Chinese university students. This is what our president said about our country.

OBAMA: It’s very important for the United States not to assume that what is good for us is automatically good for somebody else. We have to have some modesty about our attitudes towards other countries. We think it’s important nevertheless to be true to our ideals and our values. And we… When we do so, though, we will always do so with the humility and understanding that we are not perfect and that we still have much progress to make. Uh, if you talk to women in America, they will tell you that there are still men who have a lot of old-fashioned ideas about the role of women in society.

RUSH: Yah! Okay. President Barack Obama once again essentially saying, “Look, there’s nothing special about our country. I’m sure that we’ve had presidents before me that have tried to impose such wonderful things as freedom, economic prosperity, capitalism, and golden education opportunities. We’re sorry that we ever had anybody that tried to, quote, unquote, ‘impose’ that on you. But we’re through doing that! We’re not going to impose our ugly system, based on free markets and capitalism and liberty, on you. We’re not going to impose that on you anymore. In fact, we’re going to be humble! We’re going to realize here that we are actually not nearly as good as you are, that we’re certainly no better than you are. We apologize here for all of the ways that we have offended you in the past.